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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24815032">sweet child of the stars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollE/pseuds/mollE'>mollE</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the aftermath of peter parker [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically Everyone Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Temporary Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Harley's POV, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Pepper Potts Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, the Blip is just Like That</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:28:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,698</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24815032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollE/pseuds/mollE</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No one mentions the ship from the news or New York or aliens. Not that Harley expects them to—the channel was some New York news station Harley managed to wire into their home television, and most people this far out in Tennessee barely had anything more than a flip phone.<br/>Which, gross. Really, come on. A flip phone? </p><p>By sixth period, Harley’s forgotten all about the news and the ship and potentially brain-eating aliens.<br/>---<br/>In other words, the one where Harley grieves for a boy he's never met.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harley Keener &amp; Pepper Potts, Harley Keener &amp; Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark, Harley Keener &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark, Tony Stark &amp; Avengers Team, basically everyone is friends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the aftermath of peter parker [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794940</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. dust to dust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>me two months ago: i need to write something for char's birthday! a one-shot for marvel w/ harley and tony and peter because that's what she likes<br/>me now with twelve chapters outlined in the first work with other works planned: hm. this should do. </p><p>i wrote all of this chapter and got ready to post and then realized i needed Three Different Titles (series title, work title, chapter title) and that alone took me like an hour. that being said, work/series titles could change later should a better idea come to me. </p><p>this is for charlotte!! it's her birthday today (june 20) and she deserves the world but im hoping this is good enough for now. she's amazing and i love her and idk what i'd do without her so yeah!! thank her for this because otherwise i wouldn't have written it, honestly. </p><p>follow me on tumblr at elsieisntwriting!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>chapter one</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s some sort of ship over New York—Harley only half listens as the woman on the grainy television screen talks about a donut-shaped ship. It’s mostly background noise as he makes himself and his sister breakfast and gets her out of bed and makes sure she finished her English homework last night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Harley,” Abby calls from the living room, “should we be worried about the spaceship?” She sounds vaguely worried already, Harley thinks as he bends over to spit unnaturally blue foam into the bathroom sink. He wipes the corners of his mouth on the back of his hand and runs his fingers through the tangles of his bedhead. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nah, Abbs, it’s probably fine.” He shrugs at himself in the mirror, turns on his heel, and leaves the bathroom for the kitchen. “Bathroom’s open, by the way. Might wanna get in there unless you’re going to school in your, uh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>jammies.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” She appears in the doorway to the kitchen with a glare that might be a little more intimidating if not for the way her hair sticks almost straight out around her ears. Harley grins as she scowls. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They’re not </span>
  <em>
    <span>jammies</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Harley.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure. Whatever lets you sleep at night, I guess.” He slathers peanut butter on a thin piece of bread, the middle sagging under the weight, and Abby huffs and rolls her eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mom gone already?” she asks, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen. She picks at the end of her shirt like she’s being subtle. He jerks his chin toward the yellow post-it note stuck to the freezer door, their mother’s messy scrawl filling the top line.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>LATE SHIFT, WON’T BE HOME TIL LATE — DAISY OUT SICK. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Looks like it’s you, me, and some ready-made dinners again.” Harley sighs, and the woman on the T.V. says something about a spat in the middle of the city, no civilians involved and no casualties reported. Harley perks up at her off-handed mention of Iron Man, and he puts two sandwiches into a brown paper bag, folds the top over, and nudges her into the bathroom. The bottoms of her ratty, purple pajama pants drag on the floor as she walks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before they leave for school, he turns the television off with a click and a hiss of static, cutting the woman off as she starts in on the damages from the small battle between the aliens from the ship and the small team of heroes. A couple hundred thousand dollars in damages, but no one seriously hurt as far as the first responders can tell, she’s explaining, but Harley is more concerned about getting to school on time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The air outside is as cool as it ever is in the morning, not enough to warrant a coat or a sweater but cool in the shade and when the wind blows, and the front door squeals on its hinges as it closes behind them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You sure we shouldn’t be worried about aliens?” Abby asks again because of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course </span>
  </em>
  <span>she’s still thinking about that. She steps over a crack in the pavement and holds the straps of her backpack. “‘Cause Brady from my science class said that some aliens hate Earth and want to eat our brains.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No—what?” Harley sputters because </span>
  <em>
    <span>seriously? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s what he told me!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you believed him? No, aliens don’t want to eat your brain.” He swipes a hand over the side of her head and purposefully does not mention the Chitauri incident from when they were both younger. “Not that there’s anything in there to eat. Plus, The Avengers are in New York—we’re fine. You know, I once met—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>The</span>
  </em>
  <span> Iron Man, Tony Stark,” she says in a frankly offensive impersonation of Harley’s voice. “Yeah, I know, even though no one ever saw you with him, and why would he be here in Rose Hill, anyway? It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Rose Hill, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harley. Rose Hill.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you think happened to your old </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dora </span>
  </em>
  <span>watch?” They stop before the concrete steps of the middle school. “Have a good day, kid. I’ll be back after last bell—you know the drill.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, yeah. Wait here for you, don’t go home alone, and don’t take candy from strangers. I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>twelve, </span>
  </em>
  <span>not </span>
  <em>
    <span>two.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” She rolls her eyes and glances over her shoulder to where her little, middle-schooler friends are waiting for her. They’re huddled together under a skinny tree, and one of them waves way too enthusiastically in their direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“All that, and don’t let any aliens break your head open, alright?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re a jerk, Harley.” He waves her off and rounds the front of the school, walking along the wire fence toward the high school. He doesn’t think about spaceships in the city—no, why would he worry about New York problems when he has his own problems right here in Rose Hill? Sure, he worries about Tony, but he also has a test seventh period, and that stubborn bastard won’t let some aliens kill him, not after everything. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one mentions the ship from the news or New York or aliens. Not that Harley expects them to—the channel was some New York news station Harley managed to wire into their home television, and most people this far out in Tennessee barely had anything more than a flip phone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which, </span>
  <em>
    <span>gross. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Really, come on. A flip phone? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By sixth period, Harley’s forgotten all about the news and the ship and potentially brain-eating aliens. He’s itching to dig his wrinkled flashcards out of the side pocket of his backpack, but this teacher—Mrs.Whitaker, one of the only AP-certified teachers in all of Rose Hill—paces the uneven aisles as she talks, hands waving around her head wildly. Her voice is grating and too loud for the small, solid-walled classroom, and Harley winces as she strides down the aisle next to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thomas Paine, one of the early American activists, explored the basic rights of mankind,” she says, and her voice bounces off the walls and reverberates against the insides of Harley’s skull. “Life, liberty, free speech, freedom of conscience, but he also mentioned man kind’s civil rights, didn’t he? The right to protection and security, and it was not…” She pauses almost mid-step as well as mid-sentence, hands frozen in air as if she’d been submerged in ice or liquid nitrogen. (Harley has the bizarre thought of Han Solo and his carbonite prison, but the thought is fleeting and unimportant.) Her mouth is left gaping around her next word, and the silence echoes and bounces off the wall in much the same way her voice had moments before. The hairs on the nape of Harley’s neck stand up, and a shiver works its way down his spine like hot electricity. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches with a strange sort of dread as pieces of his teacher break off from the rest of her body. A piece from her cheek, skin-colored and thin like dust, but the one piece seems to set the rest of it off as she fades away to nothing in the span of a second. The boy sitting in the desk next to where she stood is ashen and getting greener by the second, his eyes wide and lips moving around a silent shriek.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley is pretty sure he’s dreaming, but he doesn’t know how long he’s been dreaming for—this morning was too normal, too detailed to be thought up, too vivid to be fake, but this…he can’t figure out any sort of logical explanation for what’s happening to his teacher. He must be asleep, and he pinches himself in the crook of his elbow. Nothing happens. He doesn’t wake up, though the pain is sharp and real until he lets go. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, shit,” someone groans from the desk behind Harley. Her voice is thin, and Harley finds himself too scared to turn around. He grips the edge of the desk like his life depends on it, and in the silence of the room, he hears the girl behind him hit the desk in pieces the size of dust. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley keeps his eyes closed tight enough to make his head ache until he can’t take it anymore, can’t take the not knowing. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Am I gone, too? Am I disappearing? </span>
  </em>
  <span>He opens his eyes and finds most of his class gone—it had always been a small class, but only he and three others remain, now. There is no evidence of anyone else ever having been in the room. No dust, no ashes, no…</span>
  <em>
    <span>parts. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harley gags at the thought, nearly upheaves his meager breakfast into his lap and isn’t quite sure how he manages to keep it down in the end. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What just…oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>God,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” says the blonde-haired girl in the back corner. Her chest is heaving, and both of her hands are pressed against the sides of her face. Her cheeks are pink under her palms. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The brain-eaters,” Harley mutters, more to himself than to her. He’s not quite sure why he says it, but the words force their way out between his lips before he can stop them. His own voice is distant and cottony to his own ears as if speaking into a long tunnel of water, his voice coming from one end and his body standing at the other. One of his remaining classmates turns his head slowly to look at Harley.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he says, but Harley pays him no mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I gotta go,” he gasps, and he fumbles while standing from his desk. Blood rushes past his ears and throbs in his temples. He leaves his bag and his stupid, wrinkled flashcards, and he makes it the whole way to the door—he hits his hip off the corner of a desk on the way there but can’t find the energy to even wince at the sharp pain—before the boy in the desk next to where Mrs.Whitaker had been standing stops him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t go,” the kid tells him, but his voice is shaking and not all too convincing. Harley grips the doorframe and turns to look at him. He’s still sitting at his desk, and every few seconds, his eyes flit to where Mrs.Whitaker was standing before…whatever the Hell happened to her happened. The boy swallows hard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And who is gonna stop me?” Harley challenges. He sweeps an arm around the emptied room. From somewhere down the hall, he hears a scream, shrill and loud and terrified—pure agony and horror in a sound. Harley flinches at the sound. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns and stumbles into the hallway. His chest is heavy with urgency, so heavy he almost can’t breathe, but he’s breathing too much, he can hear his breath echoing inside his own head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Abby,” he says to the ghost in the hall. There is no one there, though doors are opening behind him. He stumbles over his own feet, regains his footing, and finds himself at the front doors of the school, not quite sure how he got there. He chocks it up to autopilot, and a delirious part of him marvels at the human mind. Sunlight filters in through the glass in the door, casting long rectangles of light on the tiled floor of the hallway. He all but rams his shoulder into the push bar until the door swings open. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sun feels no different on his face than it does any other day. He doesn’t know why he thought it might feel different. Nothing has changed, really, except that he might have a lifetime of trauma and therapy ahead of him, now, just from watching his teacher and his classmates fade away into nothing at all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Did it hurt? Were they in pain—did it hurt? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley runs his hand along the links in the iron fence and looks at the clouds. The doors of the middle school creak as he pushes them open, and if he thought his hallways were empty, then these halls are tumbleweed-across-the-desert </span>
  <em>
    <span>barren. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harley barely dares to breathe as he creeps down the locker-lined corridor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Abby,” he calls, voice no louder than a whisper but sounding much </span>
  <em>
    <span>bigger </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the frozen silence of the school. He finds her classroom and stands outside the door for a moment, too scared to push it open and reveal, potentially, something he would be better off not knowing. Abby can’t be gone like the others from his own classroom. No, she just </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>be—Harley’s whole life, for as long as he could remember, he’s taken care of her, doted on her like his mother should have. His nausea returns at the thought of opening the door and finding an empty room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley presses his palm flat against the surface of the door and doesn’t breathe. His chest aches, his eyes burn, and the room appears beyond the door, and—and there are six children clustered in the far corner of the room, crying among themselves and whimpering but not speaking. They are pale and wide-eyed and look achingly similar to Harley’s own classmates, though he’s sure he is wearing an identical expression. The kids’ eyes shoot to the doorway as the door hits the wall and bounces off. They watch him like cornered animals, and they move closer to one another. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Abby is not one of them. (She’s always been small, she could be hiding in the middle of the group, too short for him to see over the heads of the others.) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My—my sister?” Harley asks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They turned to dust,” one of them cries, and Harley’s hands shake at his sides, “but the dust is gone, too.” The others nod in agreement, heads bobbing like stupid, little bobbleheads. Harley turns on his heel and leaves without another word, mind buzzing with static like he’d turned the television to the wrong channel. He sighs and feels like he shouldn’t have opened the door in the first place; the not knowing was a better feeling than </span>
  <em>
    <span>this. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rose Hill has never before felt so…desolate. Harley takes his usual route home, passes a woman who is kneeling on the edge of the road and weeping like Harley has never seen anyone weep before. Her ribs stretch around her lungs, and her mouth gapes around her sobs so he can see her back teeth. She cries out wordlessly, incomprehensibly. The sound bounces around in the depths of every alleyway around town. He walks around her without so much as a second look, and his arms don’t feel like they’re attached to his body anymore. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The dust, the dust,” wails a man from down the street. He clutches at the tops of his cheekbones, pulls at the skin until it comes away red and angry. “The </span>
  <em>
    <span>dust.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Harley crosses the street so he doesn’t have to walk near him. He glances down his street, eyes catching on the face of his own home, but he continues into town to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Deb’s, </span>
  </em>
  <span>the diner in the middle of town where his mother should be working, where she should be covering Daisy’s shift like her note said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley had spent the first years of his life in the back room of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Deb’s</span>
  </em>
  <span>, coloring inside the lines of picture sheets and, once he started school, he spread his homework and his workbooks out over the rickety, uneven table. He’d known all the regulars’ orders back then—Gabs Sánchez got coffee and a piece of pie every night around nine, John McCall ordered what he called a “Good-’n-Proper” Tennessee Breakfast but was really just a heap of toast, eggs, and bacon all but bathed in grease from the fryer, blueberry waffles with strawberry syrup for the Randall twins, and for their mother, a cup of coffee that always ended up being more cream and sugar than coffee. Gabs always sat at the glossy-countered bar, John McCall in a back booth, though he wasn’t too particular about which one, and the Randall's </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>sat in the same table right next to the third window facing the other side of the street. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Harley comes upon the diner, a cold feeling seeps into his bones and into his core and into the deepest pits of his being. The unassuming, little building has never felt so eerie or ominous or </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrible</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but Harley bursts through the glass double doors, breathing hard and sweating despite the coolness of the air. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Josiah Randall is crying into Gabs Sánchez’s side. Another waitress—some young-faced girl that hadn’t worked in the diner when Harley all but lived in the back room—is standing behind the counter. There’s a glass pot of coffee clutched in one of her hands. In the other, she has her fingers curled tight enough around an order pad for it to crinkle and crumble under her grip. She looks a little green and a lot pale. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mom!” Harley calls, and the whole building seems to flinch at his intrusion into the shocked quiet. Gabs looks at him like he hadn’t noticed Harley before he opened his mouth, and Josiah presses his face harder into his hip. Harley, despite being sixteen-years-old, is on the verge of collapsing onto his knees to press his own face into Gabs’ comforting embrace. He probably smells like coffee, and Harley can’t hear his mom in the back room—he knows what her breathing sounds like, small and shuffling and thoughtful, and she would have come when she called, and he’s too scared (God, he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrified what is happening!</span>
  </em>
  <span>) to venture into the back room or into the kitchen to find her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley rounds the counter in a few rapid strides, brushing past the shocked waitress who doesn’t react in the slightest. She tilts like a newly-planted tree in the wind. Coffee sloshes against the inside of the pot in her hand, but Harley throws the door to the backroom open. It smells the same as it always has: cardboard and stale burger buns and coffee. It’s all the same as it had been the last time Harley stood in this room, except his mother isn’t there, and she’s not in the kitchen, and maybe, Harley thinks, she’s not anywhere. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead of crying into Gabs’ shirt like some scared kid—that’s what he is, he knows it, he’s a scared kid, and it hasn’t sunk in, yet, that he might be actually, completely alone for the first time in his short life—Harley turns on his heel and goes home. He tells himself Mom could just be at home, or she’s looking for him and for Abby, and he has to find her. He doesn’t know if he’ll find her at home or in town or anywhere, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do if she’s gone like everyone else. Like his teacher, half his class, Abby, John McCall, and Josie and Mrs.Randall.</span>
</p>
<p><span>The man from down the street is still shouting (</span><em><span>dust</span></em> <em><span>the dust the dust the dust</span></em><span>), and his voice is echoing and impossibly loud. It follows Harley like a shadow, sticks to him like a second skin and digs at him even as the screen door slams closed behind him. </span></p>
<p>
  <span>“Harley James,” his mother would usually call from the kitchen, “don’t slam my door.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The kitchen is silent. Harley stands in the middle of the living room. He glances at the television set tucked into the corner of the room, catches his reflection in the dark, dull screen, and he promptly bursts into tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He half expects Abby to poke her head out of her bedroom door and call him a </span>
  <em>
    <span>loser </span>
  </em>
  <span>or a </span>
  <em>
    <span>cry baby</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She doesn’t, but his shoulders are tense with the thought that she might, she could, she’s just hiding and scared, but she’s not, she’s not, she’s gone, and Harley doesn’t know where the Hell she went or what happened or—</span>
  <em>
    <span>did it hurt? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harley shakes with terrible, horrible sobs. Ugly things, really, and loud, too. His ears ring at how loud they are. His hands cup the air around his face, trembling too hard to wipe the hot, fat tears away from his cheeks before they run all the way to his jaw. His skin is burning hot and unbearably cold at the same time. He’s never felt like this before, but his chest aches, and he gasps and wheezes but can’t breathe, can’t get a breath in around how badly this hurts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The phone rings. Harley doesn’t hear the first few rings over the sound of himself and his agony. But the shrill ringing from where the phone is hooked to the wall breaks through his muted haze, and he hiccups and pauses for a moment. It rings again. Harley stumbles on his way upright, knees knocking together, and he goes to the phone. It rings once more before he pulls the receiver off the wall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?” he mumbles, voice congested and wet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Harley?” says a lilting, feminine voice. “Harley Keener?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.” He doesn’t have the energy to think how strange it is that someone is asking for him specifically, especially at a time like this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh,” she sighs, and she sounds so tired and a little panicked, “thank God. This is Pepper—Tony’s wife—and he’s told me so much about you. I just…I hoped you were okay. I’m glad you’re okay.” Pepper sighs again, and Harley all but collapses against the kitchen wall. He slides to the floor so his knees are half drawn to his chest, and his spine curves uncomfortably against the solidness of the wall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wouldn’t call this okay, but I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>here </span>
  </em>
  <span>if that’s what you mean.” He laughs mirthlessly at the thought of what he must look like—red-faced and covered in tears, snot, and sweat, shaking like a leaf in a harsh autumn breeze. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall backward. It thumps dully against the solidness of the wall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, it happened everywhere? Rose Hill, too?” she asks, and Harley barely knows how to answer </span>
  <em>
    <span>that. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He doesn’t even know what the Hell happened, hadn’t had the mind to think of it happening other places. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The dust? Yeah, it…half the town’s just gone, Pepper, and I don’t—I don’t k-know. I don’t know.” He’s working himself up again, can feel the great, big, heaving sobs working their way up his chest. His vision distorts and blurs. “I can’t find my sister or my mom, and I don’t know what’s happening.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Everything is going to be okay,” she says, and even through the phone, Harley hears the stubborn hope in her voice. “It’s all going to be okay.” They sit in silence for a moment, the phone crackling in Harley’s ear as he tries to calm himself down because this is </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pepper Potts, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and he’s having a breakdown with her on the other side of the line. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley’s always been just </span>
  <em>
    <span>great </span>
  </em>
  <span>with first impressions, but he thinks this one must take the cake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I heard about the ship over New York, but I thought that was just a normal Tuesday thing in the city,” he says finally. The joke falls flat; Pepper doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t blame her. He’s not in much of a laughing mood, either. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you want to come to New York? I can send Happy, Tony’s driver, to get you, and you can—you’re welcome here, in the compound. You have a room already.” Harley knew about the room and had known since Tony told him he was going to set one aside for him in the brand new Avengers’ Compound in case Harley ever visited, but he’s never been to New York to use it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, it’s a fourteen hour drive. I’ll come myself, get there in half the time.” He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t think he can stand to sit around in this empty house for fourteen hours. Needlessly, he adds: “Just got my license, might as well put it to use.” He hasn’t driven outside of town, let alone out of the state, but he’s already jittery with the need to get up and leave Rose Hill as fast as he can. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you sure?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’ll be—” He doesn’t want to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>okay </span>
  </em>
  <span>because he’s not sure he’ll ever feel okay again. Mom and Abby are gone, and Harley’s insides are empty in the wake of today. “It’s fine. I can manage it.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you find your mother or your sister, bring them, too, okay?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, Pepper. Goodbye.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s going to be okay, Harley,” she says instead of a normal </span>
  <em>
    <span>goodbye, see you soon! </span>
  </em>
  <span>but, he figures, nothing about today has been normal so far. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hangs up without asking about Tony because he is far, far too scared to know the answer. Ignorance is better than knowing, Harley decides; this way, at least, he can lie to himself for the next fourteen hours and tell himself that Tony is okay and whole and alive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley stands in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, tears and snot drying on his face and phone hooked back on the wall, and he flounders. He should pack, look around town in case Abby and Mom are fine but just not back home yet, maybe looking for him, jumping to the same conclusions he had. But Rose Hill is only so big, and they would’ve come home first, and that kid from Abby’s class all but told him she was gone with the rest of them, and—and Harley can’t breathe again, and this all feels to him like some sort of sick, horrid teeter-totter between </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m fine, it’s okay </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh, God, I’m dying. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It must be shock. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a duffle bag buried in the mess on the floor of his mother’s closet, and he thumbs at the hole in the bottom of one of the outer pockets and fiddles with the zipper before he goes to his room to pack. He takes as much from his closet as will fit in the bag, rifles through his drawers for the wad of cash he’d been saving up to buy himself a new car (or, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>new</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but something to tinker with, keep himself entertained for a while, you know?), and he takes the key ring from the hook on the wall by the back door. The keys jingle merrily in Harley’s hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley slips into the driver’s side of the family car, a piece-of-crap truck with rust on the underside of the back bumper. He jabs the key into the ignition until the engine rumbles to life, and he grips the wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles a sick shade of white. The radio is crackling with static and faint voices beneath that, but Harley can’t make out any words. He flips a knob. The static gives way to a low, crooning voice and the notes of a song Harley thinks his mom would’ve sung along to. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only memories Harley has in this truck are of long road trips, the sun filtering in through the windows and a whole lot of road stretched out beyond the edge of the dash. He would always sit closest to the window, Abby in the middle of the single bench seat, and Mom at the wheel, humming to the song playing on the radio. He and Abby would be sun-kissed, red across the bridges of their noses, or barely awake, but Mom would just drive and drive until they got home because vacations were a day long at most because hotels were too expensive for them, even for one night.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The engine hums, and Harley regrets having never convinced Mom to let him fix the truck up—too much of a risk, she said, because they couldn’t afford it if he fixed something that wasn’t broken to begin with and made it somehow worse—but he pulls out into the street anyway. There’s only one real road out of town, but Harley knows from a lifetime in Rose Hill that there are more back roads than he can count. He takes one of those and avoids the interstate until he runs out of back roads. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley drives for fourteen hours, give or take, before he makes it into New York. He’s never been to the city, but…he’s pretty sure it isn’t supposed to look like this, feel like this, </span>
  <em>
    <span>be like this.</span>
  </em>
  <span> There are cars, or fragments of cars, really, still left on the sides of every street. Pile-ups, cars run off the road and half-crushed into the sides of buildings. The air from outside permeates the cab of the truck, and Harley gags on the thick, smoky odor of it. He drives past a wandering child no older than five, maybe, and she has a smudge on her cheek and tears in her eyes, and no one seems to be paying her any mind. Her mouth opens around a single call—</span>
  <em>
    <span>Momma? Momma, where did you go? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the other side of the city, past most of the taller buildings and the people and the wreckage of whatever happened, is the compound. Harley’s never been, but he’s Googled it enough times to recognize the modern, window-faced exterior. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pictures don’t do its size justice, and his skin prickles at the sudden feeling of smallness. Pepper greets him at the front door, and she looks—</span>
  <em>
    <span>human. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Nothing like she has ever looked on television. Her hair is wrapped up on the back of her head with a few loose strands, all of it frizzy like she’d run her hands over it a million times. Her shirt is white and too-big and stained with grease and oil, and Harley is pretty sure it’s one of Tony’s lab shirts. She smiles, but exhaustion rests in the corners of her lips. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, Harley,” she says as Harley slides out of the truck, his legs aching something fierce. “It’s good to finally meet you.” Harley all but collapses into her arms, his hands clutching the back of her shirt like he’ll die if he lets go. His face is hot and tight, and they don’t dare loosen their grip on each other for a long, long time. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, voice close to his ear. “It’s okay.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sounds sort of like Mom, and that fact only makes Harley cry harder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pepper,” Harley gasps. He presses his face into her shoulder and cries. “Pepper—</span>
  <em>
    <span>Pepper.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know, I know.” She sniffles hard, and Harley hugs her impossibly tighter before he untangles himself and wipes his face on the back of his hand. “Let’s get you inside—I bet you’re tired after such a long trip.” He doesn’t tell her that he’s been tired since this all began, but it’s the sort of tired that runs through the marrow of his bones and isn’t likely to go away with any amount of sleep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pepper leads him through a dizzying amount of hallways, up an elevator that </span>
  <em>
    <span>talks </span>
  </em>
  <span>and doesn’t have any buttons as far as Harley can see, and somehow, he ends up in the doorway of his own bedroom in the compound. He thinks he should feel more grateful or something, but he’s so tired that he just collapses onto the big bed pressed against one of the walls. Pepper lowers herself onto the space next to him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have questions,” he sighs, and she nods and looks down at her lap. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know how many answers I have.” Pepper shrugs helplessly, and Harley stares at the ceiling as he works over the words swirling around in his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s…what happened?” he asks, finally. He glances at Pepper and chews his bottom lip. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanos—Thanos happened,” she says, and Harley doesn’t bother interrupting to tell her he doesn’t know who (or what) Thanos is. “He’s a Titan, and he came to Earth looking for a Stone, one of the Stones. There are six Infinity Stones in the universe, and he wanted to use them to…I don’t know, but he sent a ship to attack New York, and Tony left to fight him, so whatever he’s doing with the Stones is nothing good. I don’t…this had to have been Thanos, or—or the Stones, at least. I don’t know, Harley.” She shakes her head once, pauses, then again. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “I think Tony was on the ship when it disappeared into space. And I haven’t heard from him yet, so I don’t know what to think.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pepper,” Harley starts, and he cycles through about a million different ways to finish the sentence: </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s okay, I’m tired, I’m scared, what do we do, can we fix this, can we fix this without Tony? </span>
  </em>
  <span>“He’ll come back. He always does.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pepper huffs on a breathy laugh, “Yeah, he always does. He’ll come back.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Harley can’t tell if she’s trying to convince him or herself.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. a stranger in space</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Harley feels much older than sixteen-years-old, but maybe that’s normal for surviving the partial end of the world.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm trying to work on writing this and my camp nano project and i just want to say i've been more productive this week than i have been in literally Months. </p><p>i hope you enjoy!! lmk what you think</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>chapter two</b>
</p><p>For as long as Harley can remember, space has fascinated him. The stars, the vastness of it. In the first grade, he’d borrowed a book on constellations from the local library and memorized the pages, and he wore an astronaut’s helmet everywhere for three weeks straight—until the principal of his elementary school forced him to stop wearing it to class. He called it ‘a distraction to other students and staff.’ </p><p>Even without the helmet, Harley still told anyone who would listen that he was going to be the best, most heroic astronaut there ever was. He’d live in the I.S.S., and did you know that the International Space Station makes sixteen orbits around Earth in just twenty-four hours? He knew all sorts of facts like that, too, like—</p><p>His school counselor squashed his dreams of ever becoming an astronaut.</p><p>“It’s just not a very common job,” she said as if a six-year-old cared about job availability. “Maybe try broadening your horizons a little. I think you’d make an excellent electrician or carpenter.” Harley’s feet hung off the edge of the uncomfortable chair in her office and didn’t even brush the ground. He blinked at her. </p><p>He tried not to tell people about astronauts, space, or the I.S.S. anymore, after that.</p><p>Harley’s first night in the Compound, after Pepper leaves him with the single demand that he get some sleep, Harley dreams he’s floating among the stars. He can’t breathe, but he finds himself unbothered by that fact. He isn’t suffocating, he doesn’t need air. He floats for a long time, limbs weightless and cold in the absence of the Sun. He’s not quite sure how he got into space. </p><p>Something floats by Harley’s line of vision, a vibrant red against the dark backdrop of space. It’s getting closer, bigger, slowly but surely, until he can make out the fine details. It’s Mark L, the newest mark, of the Iron Man armor. Tony had told him all about it, explained the basics of nanotechnology over the phone while Harley listened, and Harley observes this dream version of Tony and the suit as he drifts ever closer. The faceplate is missing, and the once-glowing core in the center of Tony’s chest is now eerily dark. Tony’s face is slack and pale, and a bolt of cold fear runs through Harley at the sight, but he can do nothing against the lack of gravity. </p><p>Harley opens his mouth to call out to him, but the sound catches in his throat and doesn’t budge, won’t move from the lump in the back of his mouth—or, maybe, Tony’s name is just lost to the vacuum of space. Harley can’t be sure. </p><p>At first, he can’t tell what wakes him, but he wakes up screaming and upright in bed, the sheets pooling around his waist and twisted around his legs. </p><p>“Mr.Keener,” FRIDAY says, sounding almost relieved. “You seemed to be in distress but would not respond to my alerts. As Mr.Stark is not in the compound, I have not notified anyone, but Mrs.Potts is awake if you would like me to alert her to your situation.” Harley gasps for a breath, throat aching and chest tight. His shoulders are heavy, and the bottoms of his eyes feel as if there are ten-pound weights tied to his skin. His back crackles, and he rolls his shoulders and groans, wipes a hand across his face. Harley feels much older than sixteen-years-old, but maybe that’s normal for surviving the partial end of the world. </p><p>“No, Fri, that’s okay—don’t tell her. Thanks, though.” <em> Thanks for waking me up. Thanks for not telling anyone. Thanks.  </em></p><p>Harley smells the grief on himself. It smells like sweat, humidity, smog, and something else he doesn’t have the energy to identify. After a while, the odor is so strong he can’t stand it any longer, and he doesn’t want to stink up Tony’s bed sheets, so he heaves himself off the bed and forces himself to stagger into the connected bathroom. </p><p>The tile is cool on his feet, and there is only one knob on the wall of the shower. He fiddles with it, but his skin is so numb the temperature doesn’t matter. He showers as fast as he can manage, swaying on his feet the whole time. </p><p>He digs through the duffel bag he brought with him and realizes, for the first time, that he brought seven shirts, two pairs of pants, three single, mismatched socks, and one pair of underwear. He hadn’t thought to bring pictures or keepsakes, but the thought of needing pictures to remind himself what Mom and Abby look like makes the saliva in his mouth turn sour. He pulls on the t-shirt he’d slept in, and his stomach grumbles. </p><p>“FRIDAY,” he starts, and he feels like an idiot for talking into an empty room, “where is the kitchen in this place?” Then, for good measure, he adds: “Damn billionaire doesn’t know what a normal-sized house is.” </p><p>“I will illuminate the way to the communal kitchen, Mr.Keener,” says the accented voice of Tony’s AI. Strips of light snake around the edges of his room, pointing him toward the door, and he finds the hallway lit in much the same fashion. He makes it halfway to the kitchen before his manners come to him.</p><p>“Thanks, FRIDAY,” he says a beat too late, but he figures the AI doesn’t fully understand social cues, anyway. </p><p>“You are very welcome, Mr.Keener. I believe it is at this point Boss would tell you to make yourself at home.” And does FRIDAY know? Does she know Tony is <em> gone </em>? That he might never come back? Do AIs understand the finality of—of…? Harley can’t bring himself to think it. </p><p>Harley follows the strips of light to the kitchen, and he digs through Tony’s cupboards, grumbling under his breath about the lack of any real food, before he gives up and makes himself coffee. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to figure out the expensive coffee machine on Tony’s counter—the one on his counter back home had, like, four buttons and this one has at least fifteen—but he manages to fill his mug without breaking anything. He takes the mug, sips from it, and nearly gags at the bitterness of the coffee, but he doesn’t bother trying to find milk or sugar. </p><p> Less than twenty-four hours ago, (how many orbits had the I.S.S. made since the ship appeared over the city yesterday?) Harley had been making sandwiches and bickering with Abby and worrying about his test and his flashcards, and now…now, he sits in one of Tony Stark’s barstools, sipping coffee from one of Tony’s mugs, and he’s not sure he’ll ever see anyone he loves ever again. Abby, Mom, Tony…</p><p>Harley takes another sip of coffee to distract himself as Pepper strides into the room. She looks sure of herself despite the fact that she’s still wearing one of Tony’s shirts—a faded MIT t-shirt that ends around mid-thigh—and gray sweatpants, and Harley marvels at her. He doesn’t feel sure of anything, but here she is, her shoulders squared and strong even as she breaks into a soft look at the sight of him in the kitchen. </p><p>“You sleep okay?” she asks, but it sounds more like <em> you sleep at all? </em>to Harley. </p><p>“Yeah,” he murmurs into the lip of the cup, and steam warms the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t dream at all—small mercies, right?” The lie is weak, and he doesn’t know why he says it. It’s not like she’d think him any weaker for letting his subconscious bully him. </p><p>“I’m glad to hear it.” She moves for the cabinet where Harley got his own mug, and she brews herself a cup of tea. She turns to him and opens her mouth as if to speak, but the elevator pings with a new arrival; Harley nearly fumbles with the mug under the crippling hope that Tony will round the corner. </p><p>It’s not Tony but a crying woman. Her hair is bundled up on top of her head with a number of strands hanging down around her pale, tear-streaked face. Her mouth moves around soundless words, and she withers under a sob, all but sinking to her knees in the middle of the floor. For a moment, Harley thinks FRIDAY’s impeccable security systems have failed; no one but Tony’s closest circle have access to the compound.</p><p>But Happy Hogan surges into the room not a moment later, and Pepper abandons her tea on the counter as she rushes toward the woman. </p><p>“Ms.Parker,” Happy stutters, but he cuts himself off, obviously floundering and not quite sure how to comfort the hysterical woman. </p><p>“May,” Pepper murmurs at the same time. She kneels before the woman, and this <em> May Parker </em> weeps into her chest. Her hands clutch at Pepper’s shirt, and the sight is not all that different from when Harley arrived at the compound. He’s never met this woman before, but he feels a strange, deep connection to her, a sympathy he doesn’t think he should feel toward her at his age. At the same time, he’s struck with the feeling that he’s an unwelcome intruder, like he shouldn’t be seeing this. </p><p>“He was—I sent him to school, and he…they were going to a <em> museum, </em> Pepper, and I didn’t,” she stutters, stumbling over her words. “They were going to protect him, he was supposed to be safe, but the ship—the ship, and he, it’s <em> him, </em> I knew the moment I saw that damn ship he’d go off and—and I can <em> feel it </em> , I can <em> feel </em>that he’s gone, just like…except I can’t do it, Pepper, I can’t!” This woman knows grief, knows mourning like it’s an old friend. Harley feels it in the way she holds herself as she cries. </p><p>“Sh, sh,” Pepper says, and she rests her chin on the top of May’s head. She shoots a look toward Happy.</p><p>“I went to their apartment to check on them, and I found her like this,” Happy explains over the sound of May crying. Her wails have lessened into pathetic sobs and hiccuping cries. “I checked for the kid, but he…and she seems convinced he’s…” </p><p>“I always thought people were crazy for saying they—they felt it,” May says. “That they felt it when someone dies, but I do, I feel it. He’s gone, my baby, he’s…” Harley glances down at his mug and finds it suddenly (thankfully) empty. Needing to escape, he stands, and no one pays him any mind as he places the cup in the sink and slinks toward the elevator. </p><p>“Do I have access to any labs, FRIDAY?” he asks as the doors slide shut without a sound, and he can no longer hear May’s grief. He sags against the slick, metal wall of the elevator and wraps his arms around himself. </p><p>“Under Protocol Potato Gun, Boss has granted you access to all Stark Labs in the Compound should he be unavailable to grant you access himself.” The elevator lurches, as does Harley’s stomach. <em> Unavailable. </em> Then, he thinks: <em> he’s never going to let me live that stupid potato gun down, is he? </em></p><p>FRIDAY takes him to a lower floor and lights the way to the lab. It’s obviously not Tony’s main lab, as Dum-E and U are nowhere to be seen, and the workstations are spotless, not a tool out of place, but the newness of it is comforting as Harley flicks up the hologram screens and rifles through the tool kits Tony has the lab stocked with. </p><p>“Would you like me to play some music?” FRIDAY asks. “Boss has a number of playlists to choose from, including ‘Rock,’ ‘Peter’s Shitty Music,’ and ‘Friday Lab Jams.’” Harley quirks a brow at the playlist names. Tony never mentioned a Peter, and what’s so special about Fridays? He doesn’t think too hard on it. </p><p>“Shuffle ‘Rock,’ would you?” Almost immediately, electric guitar fills the lab, and Harley settles himself on a rolling stool to take it all in. For the first time in the past day, he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating. He flicks his wrist so a hologram screen appears in the air before him, and he asks FRIDAY to open a new project. “Title it…‘Potato Gun: Mark II,’ please.” The title pops up in the top left corner. Harley grins; if Tony wants to remind him of his potato gun, Harley is going to fully lean into it. </p><p>He sketches out a blueprint on the hologram, and the music makes his skull rattle in the best way. In Rose Hill, he could never play music too loud for fear of disturbing his ninety-three-year-old neighbor or Mom. He always used an old speaker in the shed, one that made the bass tinny and the voices warbled and distorted, and he kept the volume low enough that it barely even made his table vibrate. </p><p>Here, though, he can make himself go deaf if he wants to. He’s sure his ears will ring the moment he asks FRIDAY to stop the music. </p><p>For now, Harley tinkers with the scraps he can find. He marks up the hologram blueprint with additions and changes and possibilities for a mark three. It’s nothing advanced, but it’s just enough to keep his mind off of the world literally falling to bits and the strange crying woman upstairs. </p><p>Harley works for hours. His fingers start to ache around the joints, and his handwriting has gone from passable chicken scratch to illegible hieroglyphics on the screen. The music is about to split his head in two, but he doesn’t dare turn it down; he hopes Pepper can’t hear it upstairs, but knowing Tony, the whole building is soundproofed. His second mark lays on the table before him, almost entirely assembled but abandoned as Harley managed to get distracted with another project—a miniature robot that had since taken the shape of Black Widow. It’s more a toy than anything, but Harley is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his mind off of things. </p><p>He’s nearly done with the Black Widow figurine when the lab door slides open with an almost silent whoosh of air. He barely hears it over the music. </p><p>“FRIDAY,” Pepper calls, and she sighs like she’s done this a million times before, “mute the music for now, please.” The music stops, and Harley is jarred by the silence, so much so that he drops the mini-Widow. It clatters against the smooth metal of the lab table. </p><p>“Oh, Pepper,” Harley greets. She comes and leans against the corner of the table and picks up the toy. She turns it over in her fingers and smiles, chuckling. </p><p>“You’re just like him, you know.” Harley doesn’t have to ask who she’s talking about; he knows. “When life got to be a little too much, he’d come in here and turn the music up and lose track of time just tinkering. He would live down here if I let him.” She laughs again and sniffles, wiping her eyes with the pad of her finger. </p><p>“Who was that lady?” Harley asks, not much in the mood to cry. He knows he will if they start reminiscing about Tony—it feels too much like Tony’s dead and gone for good. He opens his mouth to ask why she was crying, but he closes his mouth. He’s pretty sure he knows why already. </p><p>Pepper’s voice turns sad, “May Parker. She’s a good friend of Tony’s. She just…she lost her nephew in the Blip. She doesn’t have anyone left anymore.” <em> The Blip? Is that what they’re calling it?  </em></p><p>“Her nephew? Who was her nephew?” Pepper sighs and sets mini-Widow down on the table. Her lips quirk up in a sad smile. </p><p>“Peter. His name is…<em> was </em>Peter.” She wipes a hand over her face. “Tony was mentoring him. He was the sweetest kid—your age. A few months younger, I think. Tony wanted you both to meet so badly. He talked about it all the time.” </p><p>“I didn’t know Tony was doing that.” </p><p>“He wanted to keep Peter away from the media as much as he could. Peter was—he was a good kid despite the bad cards he’d been dealt. All May and Peter had were each other, and now…now, Peter’s gone, and May is alone.” </p><p>“He sounds like a good kid,” Harley says, feeling awkward and drained. Pepper clears her throat and shakes herself off. </p><p>“Come on, Harley. You should get some sleep.” Harley balks; it had been morning when he retreated to the lab to hide. Pepper must see the shock on his face because she laughs—a real laugh this time. “You really are like Tony—he always used to lose track of time like that.” Harley pushes away from the lab table and lets Pepper lead him through the lab doors to the elevator. “FRIDAY, shut down the lab.” One-by-one, the lights in the lab shut off, and the door locks with an audible click. Harley sags, suddenly aware of how tired he is. </p><p>Pepper guides him through the Compound’s hallways again, and the door to his room slides open before he really processes anything. She pulls the sheets on his bed back and tucks him in like he’s seven again. He doesn’t complain. He’s half asleep already, and the moon casts a glow over one side of Pepper’s face. She brushes the hair away from Harley’s forehead, and his eyes slip closed. </p><p>Pepper moves to leave. </p><p>“Pepper?” Harley calls. </p><p>“Yes?” He rolls over in bed to face her. </p><p>“I’m going to get them back,” he promises. “Peter, Tony—everyone. I’m gonna find a way to get them back.” Pepper returns to Harley’s side and sits on the edge of the bed. </p><p>“Tony was right when he said you and Peter would get along, I think.” </p><p>“Tell me about him?” Harley asks. This kid seems like he was important to Tony, and Harley wants to know everything about him. “About Peter, I mean.” Pepper sighs, and her weight shifts on the mattress. </p><p>“Oh, uh…gosh, there’s so many stories I could tell you.” She laughs, and Harley grins. He likes seeing her like this. Happy, less like she’s tired in a way sleeping doesn’t solve. “Last year, Tony took him to a science conference in Utah. Peter had never been out of the city before, and Tony took him to see the stars in the desert. He wanted to teach him all the constellations, but Peter ended up knowing more about stars and space than Tony did. Tony kept spouting off facts about quantum physics and obscure scientific theories for the whole week.” </p><p>“Tony never did like being one-upped.” </p><p>“No,” Pepper says. “No, he did not.” Neither comment on her use of the past tense. Harley is almost too tired to notice—<em> almost. </em>She pats Harley’s knee and stands again. “Get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning.” Pepper turns and leaves without another word, and Harley stares at his ceiling for a long while. </p><p>He thinks about Peter and the stars.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. so many celestial bodies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It feels like home, but it doesn’t feel like Harley’s home, not without Tony. </p><p>Maybe it wouldn’t feel like home with Tony there, either, because it’s not just his things making a mess of the lab.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>it's been too long my friends, but nano kept my attention on another project for a while. as retribution, i give you this long, long chapter. the next one will also be sad. this one is sad. i think. it's all very sad but hey its an endgame AU so i don't wanna hear it</p><p>transcription for tony's message came from here: https://transcripts.fandom.com/wiki/Avengers:_Endgame</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>chapter three</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Every day, Harley ends up in one of Tony’s labs. It’s not always the same lab, but most of the tim</span>
  <span>e it is, and sometimes, he’s not really sure he even means to run away to the workshop. He just sort of gravitates toward keeping himself and his hands busy, and after a few weeks of finding himself in a lab stool without really meaning to be there, he accepts it. Pepper must accept it too because she accompanies him some days, settling herself in one of the spinny stools, always with the same, melancholic look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t talk about Tony very often. For the first few days, they were both hopeful…and so naive. That first handful of days he could’ve been alive—the last Pepper had seen of him, he was hitching a ride into space on the donut-shaped ship along with Dr.Strange. (“That’s a stupid name,” Harley said when Pepper told him the story. She said, “His first name is Stephen if that helps any.” It only sort of helped.) Apparently, according to what Pepper had been able to put together from what May told her when she arrived at the Compound, Peter a.k.a. freaking </span>
  <em>
    <span>Spider-Man</span>
  </em>
  <span>—seriously, this kid is a superhero, it’s crazy—was on the ship, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tony probably tried to send him home,” Pepper reassured Harley as she explained it, all those days ago. She gestured to an empty armor case in Tony’s main lab (</span>
  <em>
    <span>IRON SP. MK I</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the case was labeled in big, blocky letters, identical to the other armor cases). They only used his main lab one time before they both wordlessly decided to never touch it again; there’s no need to touch anything in there since all of FRIDAY’s files can be accessed and used in any of the labs in the whole building. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony’s lab feels like home. It’s lived-in and well-loved, as evidenced by the mess on each of the lab tables. There are still holograms pulled up from the last time Tony occupied the space, and there is a faded, hole-y MIT sweatshirt strewn over the arm of one of the couches. There’s a throw blanket on that same couch. Tony left tools everywhere, and he must have been tinkering with one of the older marks for his suit because he left a partially disassembled gauntlet out, wires sticking out every which way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It feels like home, but it doesn’t feel like </span>
  <em>
    <span>Harley’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>home, not without Tony. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it wouldn’t feel like home with Tony there, either, because it’s not just his things making a mess of the lab. Next to the MIT hoodie is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>Star Wars </span>
  </em>
  <span>hoodie, one with a faded image of Harrison Ford wielding a sci-fi blaster on the front. The papers on one of the lab tables have Peter’s name on them instead of Tony’s. Other papers have no name on them yet but look like someone’s Spanish homework. (The Spanish homework is half-finished and mostly wrong, too, but Harley doesn’t correct them. He figures it doesn’t matter if Peter and Tony and half the world are…Spanish homework means nothing if there’s no one to turn it in.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley likes the lab on the third floor of the Compound the most. The windows on the wall farthest from the door look out over the endless expanse of water. It goes on for as far as Harley can see, until the water blends in with the horizon and the sky, and he can’t tell what’s water and what’s sky and where the division between the two is. Some days, when he can’t bring himself to work on anything, his hands shaking too bad in his overwhelming—if a bit repressed—grief, he drags a chair over to the window and watches the waves lap up onto the beach. Forward and back, forward and back, until he feels the movement in his own chest despite the distance between him and the shore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels the pull of the moon under his sternum, and he hates space. He’s never hated space before, but now, he does. It took Tony from him. Harley knows, rationally, it was Thanos, but hell if Harley knows how to blame some big, faceless alien he’d only learned about a few weeks ago. He can’t—so he blames space. The endlessness of it, the finality of it. He hates it more than he’s ever hated anything in his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Compound is empty and lonely and too quiet. Harley can’t figure out if it’s always been like that, if the walls and rooms have always felt simultaneously too big and too small, or if it’s because Tony isn’t there to talk about nothing and about thermonuclear-whatever and about Pepper and about whatever new advances he’d managed to make in nanotechnology. He’s pretty sure it’s the latter; Tony has always been a big presence no matter where he went, no matter the size of the room or stage. He fills every corner and crevice, and his absence is aching and raw and so damn </span>
  <em>
    <span>quiet. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley keeps the music turned up to tune it out. He locks himself in the lab on the third floor, and Pepper comes along to keep him company on most days. More often than not, she takes one of Tony’s hologram tablets and a stool and settles herself near the windows overlooking the ocean. She usually scrolls through whatever it is she looks at on the tablet for a few hours before she starts staring out the window, a sad look on her tired face. Her skin is pale and sallow, and she looks sickly in her grief. Harley can’t imagine what it’s like for her to have lost Tony, but he thinks he might be able to sympathize a little. He misses Abby and Mom more than anything, the loss of them sitting in his center of gravity like a great big gaping abyss, throwing him off balance so he stumbles each time he stands. He has to catch himself on the edge of the table and take a deep breath before he can move again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It only took a few days before Harley ran out of projects to work on. He isn’t like Tony—he can’t find flaw upon flaw in his prototypes. He makes three marks of his potato gun before the monotony lets his mind wander, so he forces himself to move onto the next thing. He swipes through the files on FRIDAY’s server, finding a number of works-in-progress and abandoned projects. Some titles Harley recognizes from talking to Tony on the phone; others are new and unfamiliar to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A handful of entries are filed into the server under the username “P.PARKER01” which gives Harley pause. He thinks of May upstairs. He hasn’t seen her since she arrived at the Compound and broke down in the kitchen, but sometimes, as he wanders the halls to tire himself out before forcing himself to go to bed, he can hear muffled cries coming from a closed door down the hall from his own bedroom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even without looking at the username, Harley can tell which projects are Peter’s and which are Tony’s. One of the files is called “MK1: FIRST BOT :)” and Harley doesn’t even need to check to know it’s one of Peter’s. He scans the document anyway and marvels at how smart this kid is. He’s got full plans for the project—a little bot whose use isn’t clarified in the file but would be something like a miniaturized Dum-E, Harley thinks. It’s genius-level engineering and coding and wiring, shit most kids Harley’s age wouldn’t grasp in the slightest. He can see, already, why Tony kept the kid around in the lab. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the line between </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tony’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Peter’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>becomes blurrier and blurrier as the timestamps grow more recent. There are notes in both Peter’s and Tony’s handwriting on each project. Ideas from Peter, advice from Tony, jokes from Peter, and sarcastic remarks from Tony. Harley reads each line like it’s gospel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley never dares to make any notes or suggestions on any of the projects that aren’t his own. It’s an unspoken engineer code—don’t offer input where it isn’t asked for, even if the project is seemingly cast aside to gather dust. Plus, it just feels wrong, like touching Tony’s personal lab does. He looks but doesn’t touch, reads over the notes in the margins of the drawings, laughs at some of the random doodles on the sides of the holograms, and he feels sort of like an intruder looking in on someone else’s life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a while, he runs out of projects to observe. The files look endless and like they’d take a million years to sift through, but he spends so much time in the lab that he comes to one of the earliest files. It’s from far before Peter’s time. It’s from before Harley even met Tony. It’s titled “CODE - JARVIS.” It takes Harley three days to read each line of code, and then, he’s officially out of lab projects to study. He goes to Pepper and sits next to her near the window, his mind buzzing with static. His brain sort of feels like mush—if he shakes his head, it might pour out of his ears. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I finished,” he tells her, and Pepper drags her eyes away from the horizon to look at him instead. “I read all of his project files, and I—” He bites his tongue before he can say something stupid like </span>
  <em>
    <span>I miss him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Is there anything else?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You finished?” Pepper’s eyes widen, vaguely impressed. Harley hums. “I’ve been working through Tony’s personal files—not projects, but mission reports and old S.I. memos. You can read them, too, if you want. I’ll show you how to access them.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Harley finds himself with a new distraction, this one with fewer funny remarks and more big, professional words that Harley doesn’t fully understand. Things like </span>
  <em>
    <span>accounts receivable </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>owner’s equity </span>
  </em>
  <span>and other words that he mostly skips over as he’s reading. It doesn’t help him feel any closer to Tony, but it keeps his mind off of the end of the world. It keeps his mind off of all of it, and for that, Harley is grateful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He and Pepper read in relative silence, her on her chair in front of the window and Harley wherever he feels like sitting. They read and read and read, and Harley’s pretty sure his brain is turning to goo again because he skims the same paragraph four times without realizing and then scans the paragraph once more to actually understand what the words mean and—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wakanda?” Harley sputters, his voice high and getting close to a dorky fanboy pitch. Pepper jumps at the suddenness of his voice, and he feels bad for a split second before he realizes what the file before him says. It’s a business transaction between </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stark Industries </span>
  </em>
  <span>and the government of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wakanda. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wakanda,” Pepper says like it’s some sort of revelation. Harley gapes at her as she puts down her own tablet to come toward him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wakanda?” he echoes again. “I thought that was a myth or something.” She takes the tablet out of his weak grip and scans the file he has open. A strand of hair falls over her shoulder, but she doesn’t bother brushing it away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s what Wakanda wants you to think,” she tells him almost absently. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How does Tony know about it?” Harley asks. He pauses and shakes his head. “Tony knows everything.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The other Avengers should be there, I think—they can’t all be gone.” Pepper swallows hard and puts the tablet back into Harley’s hands. “What are the chances, right? I should call T’Challa. If he’s still around?” She fumbles. She falters like he’s seen her do a lot the past few weeks. Once again, it’s nothing like he ever saw on T.V. She runs her hands over her hair and doesn’t seem to remember that Harley’s right there in front of her because she turns and leaves without saying goodbye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley’s a little tired of goodbyes anyway, even if he never got to say it to any of the people he’s lost. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>* * * *</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Avengers arrive in a big, sleek jet unlike anything Harley's ever seen before (he’s never even been on a normal plane, </span>
  <em>
    <span>jeez</span>
  </em>
  <span>) a few days later. He gapes at it as the jet lands in the big, empty field outside the compound, and Pepper starts toward it as the hatch opens and lowers to the ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a sad sight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve Rogers—</span>
  <em>
    <span>Captain-Freaking-America</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Harley's inner nerd supplies happily—emerges first, followed by Black Widow, Bruce Banner, Thor, a raccoon who is standing on two legs, and James Rhodes. They all look a little (a lot) worse for wear, and Harley’s eyes prickle at the sight of them as they meet Pepper halfway. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pepper takes one look at all of them and breaks down in big, ugly sobs. Rhodes collapses with her, and the others look like they’ve all just been sucker-punched. They move slowly, lethargically. It is not at all what Harley thought the world’s mightiest heroes would look like—but, then again, it’s easy to forget they’re all human, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He retreats to the lab, picks up his tablet, and gets back to reading about the stock market and a number of other things he doesn’t totally understand. No one comes to bother him, not even Pepper. He can’t say he blames her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not long after the day the Avengers come to the Compound that another ship lands in the field. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>* * * *</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony has never felt so paper-thin in his life. There had been that time with Obie and the arc reactor magnet in his chest, and he had been pretty sure he was going to die then. And the palladium poisoning. And Siberia. And, well, his list of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Times Tony Stark Cheated Death</span>
  </em>
  <span> goes on and on and on. He’s been living on borrowed time for God knows how long. It’s caught up to him finally, and he can’t say he’s surprised. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he’s never felt like this. All those times, he’d only been pretty sure he was going to die. He’s not pretty sure, now, as he floats through space with a blue robot lady (who actually makes decent company, who would’ve thought?) and a dwindling oxygen supply. He’s sure this time: he’s going to die. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony Stark. Billionaire, philanthropist, superhero. He wouldn’t call himself a playboy anymore, he’s long past those days. He’s practically a </span>
  <em>
    <span>dad </span>
  </em>
  <span>now. Look at what Peter’s done to him. The kid domesticated The Tony Stark, a feat not thought possible before Peter came along—no, no. His eyes well up at the thought of the kid. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The kid. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(idontwannagoidontwannagomrstarkpleasepleaseidontwannagoidontwannago)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(ash, tears, crying—oh, shit, the kid’s crying, and why is it taking so long it didn’t take this long for the others oh, shit)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(imsorry nononononono) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony doesn’t think about it. He tries not to, at least. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. He’s never going to hear Peter Parker’s stupid, dorky laugh again, and really, it’s illegal how easy it is to get him to do that laugh. That laugh makes Tony laugh, too, and isn’t that the damndest thing? Peter will never burst into his lab again, (effectively giving Tony a heart attack in the process) and then apologize for imposing when he’s never been a bother, not to Tony. He’ll never again talk so fast Tony can hardly understand him, and how long will it be before Tony learns to stop ordering so much food because the leftovers will be </span>
  <em>
    <span>insane </span>
  </em>
  <span>without Peter to devour all that food? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh. He’s thinking about it, about him, again. He hears the echo of Peter’s last words. It could be the creaking of the broken-down ship. It’s broken beyond repair, even for him. He might just be too tired to try to fix it, though. He can’t tell, and Nebula hasn’t asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d said </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Tony would laugh until he cried at that except he must be in shock—or he’s dehydrated, he can’t tell—because he hasn’t cried yet. Maybe he’ll die before he gets the chance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d apologized. It’s so </span>
  <em>
    <span>Peter </span>
  </em>
  <span>of Peter that it’s almost funny. It’s mostly sad. So, so sad. Tony aches all over. It’s the worst pain he’s ever been through, and he knows from experience that it’ll only get worse. Maybe it’s all better this way—he’s read oxygen deprivation is like going to sleep. He hopes it doesn’t hurt too much, at least. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks of Pepper and closes his eyes against the endless, suffocating, claustrophobic expanse of space beyond the window of the Benatar. His head pulses in time with his heart, and he fumbles for the dark Iron Man helmet nearby before he really knows what he’s doing. He cradles it in his hold for a long moment, half because he can’t tell if he can keep it together long enough to record a message for Pep and half because his arms feel weak and staticy suddenly. It’s not a pleasant feeling; it won’t be long, now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony flicks a switch inside the helmet and sets it down in front of his seat near the window. He hasn’t seen himself recently (not since the morning before he managed to get himself launched into space) but he’s sure he’s not as pretty as he normally is. Not that he thinks he’s much to look at normally, but his hands are a little blue, and he must look </span>
  <em>
    <span>old. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He prays he doesn’t look too much like Howard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The helmet lights up, illuminating this part of the ship. Tony winces at the sudden burst of light, but he forces a light tone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This thing on?” He taps the helmet. It rattles. “Hey, Miss Potts…Pep. If you find this recording, don't post it on social media. It's gonna be a real tear-jerker. I don't know if you're ever going to see these.” He sighs. He sort of hates himself for leaving her behind with all of his mess and this recording. A sudden thought occurs to him: “I don't even know if you're…if you're still…Oh god, I hope so.” He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she died, too. If she’s gone, Tony can’t quite pick out anything to live for anymore. Her, the kid, both of them gone, leaving him alone on a half-empty Earth. Yeah, half-empty. Call him a pessimist, he deserves to have that much. “Today is day twenty-one. Uh, twenty-two. You know, if it wasn't for the existential terror of staring into a void of space, I'd say I'm feeling better today. The infection's run its course, thanks to the blue meanie back there.” He picks up the helmet to show Nebula on the other side of the ship. She stares back at him and doesn’t smile. “You'd love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic. Some fuel cells were cracked during the battle, but we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge to buy ourselves about 48 hours of time. But it's now dead in the water. We're 1000 light-years from the nearest 7/11. Oxygen will run out tomorrow. And that'll be it. And Pep, I…” Tony pauses. “I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like…well you know what it looks like.” That’s too grim—he’s always used humor to cope, but this is all so dark, even for him. Pepper must hate that about him, but he can’t help himself. “Don't feel bad about this. I mean, if you grovel for a couple of weeks, and then move on with enormous guilt.” He wheezes on a deep breath, feels like he’s just run a marathon or five. “I should probably lie down. Please know that…when I drift off, I will think about you. Because it's always you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When</span>
  </em>
  <span>, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>if</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’s not pretty sure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony wants to tell Pepper that he loves her, but he can’t catch his breath, and she must know already. She has to know. He leans forward and turns off the recording, fumbling with the switch because he can’t feel his fingers at all anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ship rumbles—hard. Tony lists to the side, and it feels like they’re moving. Nebula makes a sound that he can’t quite make out beyond the rushing of blood in his ears. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, that can’t be good, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thinks, but he doesn’t have the strength to pick himself up off the ground. He wonders if Pepper will ever see the message he recorded for her. Tony gapes for a breath but can’t find enough air to expand his lungs, and he lets himself go to sleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t hurt that bad. Huh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>* * * *</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley’s standing before the window looking out over the big, empty field where the Avengers had landed not days before. It’s been almost a month since…everything. He’s run out of files to snoop through in FRIDAY’s archives, except for a hell of a lot of videos saved to her servers. Harley can’t bring himself to watch any of them, not yet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of it still hurts so bad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s dark out. If he asks FRIDAY about the time, she’ll probably say some insanely early hour (or insanely late, depending on how he decides to look at) and then she’ll suggest he go to bed. She’ll even light up the floor lights between here and his bedroom.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t want to sleep. Everything feels muffled, somehow. He’s never had to grieve for so many people at once, and he can’t tell if he’s doing okay. Maybe he’s not. He misses Abby and his mom and Tony and Peter, a little, even if he’s never met the kid. From what Harley can tell, he seems cool. Funny. A little too nice, but it’s genuine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Out the window, there’s a streak of light in the sky. Harley traces the path it makes as he fiddles with a loose string on the bottom hem of his sweater. He doesn’t pay much attention to the streak of light until he looks up again and realizes that it’s gotten considerably </span>
  <em>
    <span>closer </span>
  </em>
  <span>to the Earth. A cold bolt of panic shoots through him, and hysterically he thinks, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I can only take so many world-ending events. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“FRIDAY?” he starts, and his voice comes out surprisingly stable. He hides his shaking hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts. “Should we be worried about whatever is coming toward us from space?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sorry, Mr.Keener, but my sensors are not picking up any threats. Should I contact someone?” she asks, and Harley nods, forgetting himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, Fri. Wake Pepper, Happy, Steve—Hell, just…” The object (UFO? Harley </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>living with a talking raccoon and a god and a guy who turns green on occasion, now, so he shouldn’t be surprised at this point) is much, much closer now, and he can almost make out the shape of it. “Just get everyone.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nat meets him near the glass doors that open into the field. She looks awake and alert, more so than Harley himself feels. She’s still wearing the pants she wears with her Widow uniform, and there’s a knife in her hand. Steve follows her, dressed in a tight t-shirt and plain sweatpants. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up, kid?” he asks, and for the first time, Harley realizes he’s never actually spoken to any of the remaining Avengers. They probably don’t know his name. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wordlessly, he points to the sky. Pepper gasps as she appears behind Harley and the raccoon is next to her. He presses himself up against the glass and cranes his neck like a toddler looking into a zoo enclosure. His skinny mouth opens and closes a few times. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the Benatar,” he says, matter-of-fact and like any one of them would understand what that means. Harley blinks and looks between the raccoon and the UFO. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The what?” Harley asks. His mind is having a hard time keeping up with all of this. He regrets not taking Pepper’s advice to get some sleep. Hindsight, after all, is twenty-twenty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s my ship—the Guardians’ ship. We use it to, like…get around space.” The raccoon waves his little hand through the air around his face and points at the ship. Now that it’s closer, Harley can make out the general shape of what a spaceship might look like, he supposes. “It doesn’t normally glow like that, though.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s…concerning. Harley doesn’t dwell on it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In fact, he doesn’t have time to dwell on it because the ship is descending upon the field a moment later, and Steve is rushing toward it. There’s a woman lowering the ship onto the grass—</span>
  <em>
    <span>what?</span>
  </em>
  <span>—but Captain Rogers gets there before the hatch whooshes open. Harley holds his breath and dares to hope. He feels like crying, but he doesn’t. Beside him, Pepper is clutching Rhodey’s hand like it’s a lifeline keeping her afloat in the middle of the ocean. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony appears at the top of the landing hatch. Beside him is a blue woman or robot or alien. Tony’s a little blue around the gills, too, and he stumbles toward Steve. Steve catches him as his legs go out, and Harley is running faster than he’s ever run in his life to get there, Pepper on his heels and Rhodey next to her. Harley’s never felt so happy in his life. His head is buzzing with one single thought: </span>
  <em>
    <span>TonyTonyTonyTonyhe’saliveTony!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Couldn’t stop him,” Tony slurs. His hands scrabble for the back of Steve’s t-shirt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither could I.” None of them could—the Avengers lost, and half the world is gone because of it. They’ll fix it. Now that Tony’s back (Tony is back, he’s alive, he’s here on Earth, Harley almost can’t believe it), they’ll fix it together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I lost the kid,” Tony whispers, sounding broken. He hadn’t sounded like this even when he crash-landed in Rose Hill or when he called Harley to tell him about the Civil War and losing half of his pseudo-family. This is pure </span>
  <em>
    <span>grief. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley thinks of May. His stomach sinks and his blood turns icy in his veins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tony, we lost.” Harley resists the urge to roll his eyes because </span>
  <em>
    <span>duh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Captain Rogers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is, uh…” Tony’s eyes roam the field and the silhouette of the Compound unseeingly. His mouth works around words he doesn’t say. Pepper yells and surges forward and shoulders Steve out of the way, and Tony melts into her as they embrace. “It’s okay,” he promises before he fully collapses against her. She catches him under the armpits but struggles under the weight of him until Captain Rogers picks him up and races toward the glass Compound doors. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s too fast for Harley to even try to keep up with, so he watches him whisk Tony away. Tony’s head lolls and jerks with each of Steve’s steps, his mouth open and eyes rolled back into his head. Pepper follows, her hands cupped over her mouth and her hair flowing wildly behind her. May appears in the shadowy hallway, her eyes outlined by big dark circles. She bites her lip and scans the field, hope showing openly on her face. The glowing woman who carried the ship is long gone, as is the blue cyborg lady and all of the others. Only Harley and May remain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did he…Peter?” she asks, and Harley shakes his head, feeling simultaneously empty and like he’s been stuffed full of cotton. May hugs herself and cries like she had the first time he saw her in the Compound kitchen, and Harley takes her by the bicep and leads her toward the nearest wall. Together, they sink to the floor, their backs against the hard surface and their shoulders touching. He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He’s only sixteen. Peter wasn’t much younger. These shoes he’s trying to fill feel too big and too old, and Harley doesn’t know what to do.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>May cries; Harley doesn’t, but that’s mostly because the tears won’t come no matter how much he wants them to. He wishes he could cry with her. Maybe he would feel better if he did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thor returns to the hallway sometime after May has tired herself out. She’s slumped over on Harley’s shoulder, but he can’t tell if she’s asleep or not. Either way, he doesn’t move, too scared he might send her into another breakdown. Pepper said May only had Peter left. Harley thinks he knows how she’s feeling now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Thor rumbles, and he sounds like thunder in the quiet hallway. “I will assist the Lady Parker in carrying her to bed.” If not for the light coming from the moon, Harley might not have seen the tear tracks on Thor’s face or on May’s as he picks her up. But he does. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harley’s chest aches as he makes his way to the MedBay, the floor lights illuminating the way without him having to ask FRIDAY. He sends her a mental thanks as he doesn’t think he can speak without his voice shaking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tony is barely awake—much less coherent—when Harley bursts into the MedBay. He’s struggling against Dr.Cho and Bruce as they force a clear, plastic oxygen mask over the bottom half of his face, but he catches a glimpse of Harley in the doorway and pauses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Peter?” he slurs, squinting at Harley. A tear runs down the side of Tony’s face, and Harley turns on his heel and collapses on the couch in the room just beyond the MedBay. He holds his head in his hand and wills the tears to come. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t. </span>
</p>
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